Galatians 5:22 — Patience
“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!”
We could spend today’s devotional talking about how to improve your patience. We could talk about how God challenges your patience by making things take an extra long time. (If you find yourself 10 steps ahead of God, it’s you, not him…) But we are not going to talk about any of those things. Why? Because we have already determined that the fruit of the Spirit is not a list of rules that we are trying to conquer behaviorally. These characteristics describe the very essence of who God is, and we are currently trying to wrap our brains around the idea that the Holy Spirit is being all these things towards us.
So we are going to spend today dwelling on the fact that God is incredibly patient. With me. With you. In no way and at no time is God ever looking at you and wishing you would hurry up and improve already. He is not shaking his head in disappointment or thinking that you are an idiot for not getting this “good Christian” thing sooner. Last I checked, God was pretty well aware of what he was getting into saving a bunch of limited human beings wrecked by sin. It wasn’t because he was looking for a peer relationship. He’s all set with that.
Here’s your freedom for today: God wants to engage with human beings that are slowly becoming. If God were in a rush, he would have saved the world pretty rapidly after the fall of humanity. But he didn’t. I’m not going to attempt to explain why — after all, I barely understand the concept of patience as it is, nevermind fully grasp God’s motivations. I can only guess that those who know how to create something truly brilliant know it is a bad idea to rush. Imagine the Sistene Chapel if Michelangelo had gotten antsy after a year or two. (It took him four.) God is right now at this very moment not rushing you. He is deeply involved in your life, patiently sculpting your very being into the masterpiece he has in mind. As you sit in God’s presence and invite him to have his way, he gently presses your spirit into something more beautiful than yesterday. Right now, you might look like a misshapen lump of clay and you might wonder what he’s up to. But he knows. And he likes it.